"War, which used to be cruel and magnificent, has now become cruel and squalid."

--

Winston Churchill

La Triviata

While in a hot battle against two French ships on September 13, 1800, Charles Stewart, commanding the USS Experiment, reportedly was saved from a crippling wound because a bird alit on his shoulder in the confusion of the fight, and absorbed the first impact of a musket round that struck the young lieutenant, leaving him with only a slight wound.

Ahinshi Akiyama, one of the founders of the Imperial Japanese Naval War College, took part in the Battle of Santiago on July 3, 1898, as an observer aboard the armored cruiser USS New York.

Rumor has it that in 1969 a young Marine in Vietnam was given a court martial for having been found in a house of prostitution, not for whoring around, but for leaving his M-16 outside.

During the Mexican War, the desertion rate in the U.S. Army was approximately 8.3-percent of strength.

During the German siege of 1870-1871, among the many “delicacies” with which the desperate gourmands of Paris made do were such improvisations as “chat flanqué de rats – cat surrounded by rats.”

During WW II the U.S. Navy raised some 678 Seabee battalions of various types, though not all of them existed at the same time.

In the Korean Navy, it is customary at formal dinners for the guest-of-honor to sing for his supper, a tradition that has allegedly resulted in occasional impressive Elvis impersonations by senior U.S. officers.

During the late nineteenth century the venereal disease rate in the British Army ran about 30-percent of personnel on strength per year.